𝕸𝖀𝕽𝕯𝕰𝕽 | 𝖂𝖊𝖉𝖓𝖊𝖘𝖉𝖆𝖞

𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖗𝖙𝖞-𝖙𝖜𝖔

~

XXXII

~

It's strange how much blood is inside a body.

You only seem to realise it when that blood is everywhere except inside the body.

You realise how thick, hot and sticky it is. How metallic and ferrous.

How it stains your skin, soaks your clothes and mattes your hair.

The moment that Aiyla felt the sickening warmth of Bahadir's blood, she knew that the world was ending.

Because the way his eyes were shining as he fell to the ground, was her own apocalypse.

Aiyla couldn't breath, she couldn't hear, she couldn't see.

Everything was in slow motion.

Until she heard the thud of his body hitting the cement.

She fell to her knees pressing her hands to the bullet wounds to try and stop the bleeding, but there were too many of them. Five, six? She didn't know. She'd forgotten how to count.

Bahadir's hair and beard were matted with crimson. He was choking on it.

There was so much blood.

He reached one hand up, and clumsily grabbed her pendant - the moon and star - staining her throat and the top of her shirt with his blood.

Aiyla didn't say, 'I love you', or 'stay with me'.

She looked him in the eyes, tears streaming down her face and blurring her vision, and begged with all of her heart: "Say the Shahadah, please. Say it, now. Please, take it. Take your Shahadah."

She was rambling and begging now, choking on her tears.

Bahadir's eyes were beginning to unfocus, but he looked up, past her head and to the sky.

Shaking and convulsing, he raised his trembling right index finger and stammered out, "Ashadu an'la illaha illallah, wa ashadu anna muhammadun abduho wa rasool."

Bahadir smiled through his tears.

Aiyla smiled through her tears.

She lowered down, and kissed his forehead.

...

Aiyla used to hate hospitals.

The smell, the racist doctors, the crying babies.

All of it.

But as she sat down, at a bedside, her arm bandaged, she couldn't have been more grateful.

"How much blood did you give?"

Aiyla turned around, to see Xavier.

He walked over to her, tucking a stray curl behind her ear and kissed her temple.